Fire, I Loved
by Songs for a Solstice
Summary: You meet him when he speaks of tomorrow with a cold fire that dances and ensnares. You'll follow this broken shell now for what it reminds you of, even when the fire's all but gone. It's not as though you can complain about 'broken', anyway. Bellamort, canon-compliant, angst


**Done for a request; enjoy :3**

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**I.**

Against the noisy backdrop of the pub, he speaks powerfully but calmly; his voice is quiet and his tone smooth, almost seductive even as every word burns with passionate sincerity.

The words attract you, of course. _Attract _isn't strong enough, not at all, because they _sing _to you, to your ideals and beliefs and your knowledge that _we are better_. But as ashamed as you are to admit it even to yourself, he could be saying _anything _– could be cajoling you to _tolerate _filthy Mudbloods (or even worse, _accept _them) – and you'd follow.

You'll follow him into death if need be.

_Tom Riddle_, you think, sounding out the name in your head.

He glances at you, pinning you with his gaze, and you freeze in your seat.

He smiles slightly, still staring directly at you, before looking away and continuing to speak, though you don't hear what he's saying.

You don't need to.

**II.**

_Tom Riddle_.

He fucks you the same way he speaks, the way he does everything. It's torturously slow, almost clinical, but underscored by a raging heat that dominates and sets your nerves on fire.

"_Tom_," you gasp out when you come, and you're so dazed that you barely feel him freeze inside of you.

Later, as you're running fingers over his pale skin, he says quietly, "'Tom' was my father's name. A common, disgusting Muggle name."

_Muggle_? "You're a half-blood?" and it's so hard to conceal your tone of disgust, but you think you manage. It's impossible, that this man, teeming with power and nobility, could ever be so _base_.

In one fluid movement, he's hovering over you, hands to your neck; you choke, gasping desperately for air.

"I might look like _him_," he hisses coldly (but his rage is burning and it's so deliciously painful, you can't help but want more of it), "but I am Salazar's heir. _Don't forget it_."

**III.**

_Voldemort._

_Lord Voldemort._

Death has never frightened you, but he is your Lord (your master your lover) so you don't tell him that you preferred the name _Tom_.

_Tom _is a lover's name, _Voldemort _a master's.

He still fucks you, but doesn't stay afterwards; he doesn't linger in bed, doesn't let you touch his skin (that's getting paler and paler even as his eyes lose their incongruous soft brown to what looks disconcertingly like the colour of Gryffindor rubies).

But he still spends time with you, still smiles approvingly when you come up with a new idea to convert the stupid sheep that make up the Wizarding world.

Anything for that.

**IV.**

You don't start off finding happiness in suffering. Oh, Andromeda (blood traitor whore but always a Black, always your sister) and Cissy might talk about you killing animals; but never for the pain. You're curious – how much blood lost before it's too much, what the inside of a cat looks like.

They didn't understand, but your Lord does; he recognises where your talents lie, gives you purpose where nothing else has. He's your guiding light, through obsequious Ministry officials wanting nothing more than to be seen with you to raise their miserable social statuses.

**V.**

You don't find happiness in suffering but you _laugh _when the Longbottoms scream. You wish their son was here, their little newborn baby that's off with his grandmother (not that you're worrying about that, because the next miserable life on your list is Augusta Longbottom). You want to tear them apart then put them back together, want to find a way to make sure they die over and over till _he comes back and then you'll kill all these blood traitors together, you and him_.

**VI.**

Azkaban makes you crazy, perhaps.

But you've been insane since you met _him_.

And that will never change, you vow, as Dementors steal everything from you that made you want to live (everything but him, nothing can take that, and so when you're rocking backwards and forwards on your pile of straw, you don't think about your sisters _what sisters _only _him_)

Only him.

**VII.**

It's the happiest day of your life when you realise you're going to see him again.

_And then you do._

He's not who (_what_) you remember (no fire just ice, cold and harsh and unforgiving and he was all of those but so much more and you can't bring yourself to think that-)

But you're not what you remember, either.

**VIII.**

_Bella_. He still calls you _Bella_, even if his voice is cold and affectionless, even if he doesn't smile at you like he used to, even if he doesn't order you to join him in bed. He trusts you, even if he doesn't love you (_never loved you_), even if he doesn't want you.

Azkaban has ruined you for him, but nothing can ruin him for you.

_Only him._

**IX.**

Your spirit lingers, resisting Death's call and the choice you have to make. You see his anger when you fall and something in you smiles.

When Potter strikes him down, when his body falls broken to the ground, you wait.

Nothing rises from the corpse, no spirit or soul.

You wait, that something-in-you faltering suddenly.

_They _(blood traitors Mudbloods half-breed mutts) throw his body into the ocean. You follow it, and if you don't know how (because ghosts are pinned to home, or where they died, and the ocean is neither for you, and are you a ghost if no one sees you, not even Cissy when you appear before her) it doesn't matter.

You'll wait.

_Always_.


End file.
